The Hudson Valley UFO

In a place you would hardly expect, just one
hour north of New York City, lies the site of one of the most
widely observed and yet most unexplainable set of UFO sightings
ever seen. The place is the Hudson Valley, and the story of its
strange UFO started on New Years Eve, 1982.

A few minutes before midnight, a retired police
officer was out in his backyard in Kent, New York when he observed
a group of strange lights off to the south. They were colored
red, green and white. At first the former officer thought they
belonged to a jet aircraft in trouble, but as the object passed
over his house at a height he estimated to be about 500 feet,
he realized it was moving much too slowly for a jet and made
too little noise. Just a distant humming sound. As he watched,
he decided the the lights, which appeared as a "V" shape, were
connected by a dark, triangular fuselage.

What the former officer had seen would be observed
many times in the Hudson Valley area over the next few years
by hundreds of different witnesses: A "V" shaped set of multicolored
lights moving slowly and silently across the sky. On March 26th,
1983, a front-page story in the Westchester-Rockland Daily
Item proclaimed:

HUNDREDS CLAIM TO HAVE SEEN UFO

The article, which told of sightings of a triangular
UFO on Marth 24th, got the attention of a group of UFO researchers
in the Valley associated with Dr. J Allen Hynek, founder
of the Center for UFO Studies. The group started an investigation
of the phenomena which was later documented as a book, Night
Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings, authored by Dr.
Hynek and Philip J. Imbrogno, with the help of Bob Pratt.

The group opened up a UFO hotline and received
over 300 calls from people that had seen the UFO on the night
of March 24th alone. One witness cited in the book reported
that it had moved up the Taconic Parkway in "sort of a Z pattern."
He described the object as being triangular in shape with thirty
to forty colored lights along the back edge. The object, he
stated, was huge, "If there is such a thing as a flying city,
this was a flying city."

The object apparently cruised over the community
of Yorktown that evening too where the police switchboard became
so jammed with reports, officials became concerned that they
would be unable to take emergency calls.

On the Taconic parkway people pulled over to watch
the object as it moved slowly on its path. One observer estimated
it was "as large as an aircraft carrier."

The UFO researchers estimated that over 5,000
people had seen the object over a period of five years from
1982 through 1986. Often the UFO seemed to glide over large
areas causing dozens of sightings in one night. It was never
spotted during the day.

Most reports came from people who seemed to be
reliable witnesses. As the authors put it "ordinary people who
have seen something extraordinary." The UFO was seen not just
over the Hudson Valley, but as far east as New Haven, Connecticut
and as far north as Brookfield, Connecticut.

While most reports described the UFO moving at
a very slow speed, hovering, or turning slowly like a wheel,
a few reports described the object as suddenly zooming away
at fantastic speeds, or just disappearing. In some accounts
the shape varied so that the lights appeared as more of a circle
than a "V". Often the color and arrangement of the lights changed
as the viewers watched. In a few cases reports arrived that
put the object at two distant locations at the same time suggesting
there might be more than one of them.

One of the most striking reports that the group
gathered was from guards at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant.
The UFO apparently hovered over an active nuclear reactor for
some minutes coming as close to the reactor dome as thirty feet.
The security supervisor even considered ordering guards to shoot
it down. One guard described it as being the length of three
football fields.

The object also seemed to be interested in bodies
of water. One observer watched the UFO over Croton Falls Reservoir
where it seemed to use a red beam to probe the surface.

The researchers knew that when investigated most
UFO reports turn into reports of IFOs: Identified Flying Objects.
Often they turn out to be planes, balloons, satellites, or even
the planet Venus. They did find evidence that some of the reports
of the "V" shape may have been a group of small planes flying
out of the Stormville Airport. The pilots seemed to have been
flying their planes in a formation in a deliberate attempt at
a UFO hoax.

The plane hoax only cleared up a small number
of reports, however. Most observers reported that the lights
moved together as a solid object. Others could see the body
of the UFO between the lights. None of the observers who had
seen both the planes and the object thought they were the same
phenomenon.

There are few good explanations for most of the
Hudson Valley sightings. The only object that moves slowly through
the air and hovers almost silently is a blimp. Researchers contacted
all blimp operators in the area and could find no matches between
the blimp schedules and the UFO reports. It was widely speculated
at the time that object was a formation of ultralight planes.
This seems unlikely as the UFO was nearly silent, could hover,
and carried tremendously bright lights, all things ultralight
aircraft are incapable of doing.

The Hudson Valley UFO remains a mystery even today.
If you decide to take a trip to the Hudson Valley to try and
see the strange UFO for yourself, you may want to stay at one
of the excellent local bed and breakfast Inns. One, the Burlingham
Inn, has decided to take advantage of the strange nighttime
phenomena by featuring a UFO Bed & Breakfast. They
welcome UFO watchers and list UFO sighting as one of the activities
for which the Inn is especially well located.